Geo Answer + Global Hit

The Louisiana is your first clue for today’s Geo Quiz. The Louisiana is one of many live music clubs in the city we’re looking for today. Don’t let the name of the club fool you.

The place we want is not on the banks of the Mississippi River. Try the River Avon instead.

That river flows through a city in south-west England. It is one of England’s “core cities” — large, influential cities outside the London area. The city’s port has long been part of its identity.

www.flickr.com/photos/pixelfix/www.flickr.com/photos/pixelfix/

This was once the home of grand fishing fleets. In the 1790’s, slave ships based in this city sailed to Africa and the Americas. Now, fast-forward to the 1990’s.

That’s when the city gave birth to its own style of music, called “trip-hop.” Our global hit today features some of the bands that made trip-hop famous. First, you gotta name this core city in south-west England…

Our Global Hit today also provides the answer to our Geo Quiz.

The English city known as the “home of trip-hop” is… Bristol.

Our Global Hit today also provides the answer to our Geo Quiz. The English city known as the “home of trip-hop” is… Bristol. And THIS is what Bristol band Portishead is up to these days.

A little background first. A writer once quipped that nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. Case in point, Brits are now nostalgic about the music of the nineties. Not the 1890s.

The 1990s. Bands like Portishead, Massive Attack, and Tricky represented a movement called trip-hop. Trip-hop became very big.

Well, as of last week, one of the leading exponents of trip-hop, Portishead, is back with a new album and a few select live dates.

Singer Beth Gibbons out front on that dark single from the Portishead album “Third.”

It’ll be coming out here in the states next week. The track is called “Machine Gun.” It’s more industrial than it is warm. A gentler sound comes from Brit duo Goldfrapp.

Like Portishead, the duo Goldfrapp also represents the sound known as “Bristol Time”: bands from Bristol, England that rose to acclaim in the 90s.

Goldfrapp emerged on the tail-end of Bristol Time, with one album that felt like an ode to disco. Their latest CD “Seventh Tree” is another departure for Goldfrapp. It’s got a Magical Mystery Tour psychedelic vibe.

Goldfrapp put out “Seventh Tree” two months ago. But this week, the single, this song called “Happiness,” hit the charts in the UK. It debuted at number 25.

You may soon be hearing it on American radio.